Kaoru Watanabe's Bloodlines

APPEARING: MANHATTAN MARATHON @ The Neilma Sidney Theatre, Performance Space NY

Friday, January 10, 2025

Acclaimed composer and instrumentalist Kaoru Watanabe's work is grounded in traditional Japanese music while imbued with contemporary jazz, improvisation, and experimental music elements. His signature skill of infusing Japanese culture with disparate styles on the shinobue flutes and taiko and other Japanese percussion has made him a much-in-demand collaborator working with such iconic artists as André 3000, Wes Anderson, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Laurie Anderson, Jason Moran, Yo-Yo Ma, Japanese National Living Treasure Bando Tamasaburo and Rhiannon Giddens.

Born to Japanese parents who were long-time St Louis Symphony Orchestra members, Watanabe began training at a young age, eventually graduating from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied Black American jazz music. He then moved to Japan and became the first American to perform with and lead the internationally acclaimed taiko performing arts group Kodo. Acting as Artistic Director of Kodo's Earth Celebration festival, inviting such artists as Zakir Hussain, Giovanni Hidalgo, and other masters of music from across the globe, he first saw how profound cross-cultural collaboration could be: people who don’t share a common language can find ways to unite in musical conversation when done with a sense of mutual respect, open-mindedness, an open heart, and a desire to connect. In 2008, after ten transformative years in Japan, which left him deeply connected to his heritage and the land from which his parents came, he left Kodo. He returned to New York to weave together all the musical threads of his experiences.

Watanabe’s compositions draw lines between distant points—Japan and America, ancient history and modern politics, and Eastern and Western music. Looking for the sympathetic vibrations that emerge, he weaves together Buddhist chants reimagined as antipolice brutality protests, WWII-era ZERO kamikaze fighter planes, the Sengoku Civil War era, and the culture wars of today’s America. In his work, Watanabe introduces sounds from a distant past to the 21st century, expressing the many layers of his identity and culture.

He acted as an advisor and was a featured musician on Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs, and he is featured on the Silkroad Ensemble’s Grammy Award-winning album Sing Me Home. He also created music for Martin Scorcese’s Silence and Netflix’s Ultraman: Rising, and perhaps his greatest accomplishment was providing the jazz flute stylings of the Pied Piper in Shrek 4ever After.

As an educator, Watanabe has taught courses at Princeton, Wesleyan, and Boston Conservatory and was an artist-in-residence at Loyola University. He has taught workshops across North and South America, Europe, and East and Southwest Asia.

Watanabe’s drums are provided by Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten, a mikoshi shrine and traditional instrument maker founded in 1861. His flutes are provided by Ranjo, a master craftsman based in Chiba Prefecture who makes instruments for many of the top musicians in Japan. One of the highest honors of Watanabe’s life is when Ranjo declared, “Watanabe possesses the greatest sound on the shinobue in the world.”

“I have long felt that Kaoru Watanabe has the greatest sound on the shinobue of any player in the world. ”

Ranjo (master shinobue maker)

“Kaoru Watanabe: a rare musician who traverses the traditional music forms both East and West, classical and contemporary, predetermined and improvisational. His expertise in taiko drumming and bamboo flutes gives his music both force with exteme delicacy. His superb musicianship makes him a joy to create with. He enriches any musical situation with his unique perspective.”

Jason Moran (Jazz Pianist, Blue Note Recording Artist)